Part 3

This takes us back to the origin of sacrifice; and the first remark which occurs is, that it would seem highly probable that its institution was a matter of revelation from God to Adam; for though mere reason and moral feeling might make the creature see the propriety of offering to the Creator something of that which His bounty had bestowed, and possibly might lead to the thought that it should be not mean, but good and precious, yet there are so many attendant circumstances in the institution, which it does not appear possible to account for upon the hypothesis of the mere dictates of reason and feeling, that we can hardly ascribe the practice to anything short of a communication of the divine will to man. However, be this as it may, it is plain that both Cain and Abel were conscious of the duty of offering sacrifice or oblation in some kind to God. And each brought of that which he had. So far, it might be thought, Cain was not behind his brother. “Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, but Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and (it is added) “of the fat thereof.” Now it may be we are intended to note a difference here,—that Abel’s offering, the firstlings and the fat, denotes the earliest and the best: as if he hastened to acknowledge, in all thankfulness and humility, that he was not worthy to touch or use anything he had, until he had sanctified it by first offering of it to God; and this, the first he had, and the best: whilst the more scanty narrative as to Cain, that he merely brought of the fruit of the ground, may mark that he took no heed to bring of the first, nor of the best. He would offer _something_ as an acknowledgment of God’s power,—perhaps, too, of His goodness,—but not in that due spirit of unmeasured humility and thankfulness, which alone was becoming in a son of Adam. But this, if it were so, does not seem to be all which is implied as to his lack of faith. To understand wherein this lay, we must remember the promise made to our first parents after the Fall, of “the seed of the woman” who should “bruise the serpent’s head.” {30a} Faith in this seed, the hope, the only hope of the world after Adam’s transgression, seems to be the thing intended; and if we suppose that God was pleased to reveal to our first parents some further particulars as to the mode of the atonement to be made by shedding of blood, by which this hope was to be fulfilled, and the victory to be obtained, we shall be furnished, not merely with a clue to the difference in the acceptableness of the offerings of the two, but also with a key to a large part of the Holy Scriptures, and an understanding what manner of faith should be in every one of us, as well as to much that is important as to the history and design of sacrifice. Let it be granted, then, as highly probable, that to Adam a revelation was given that in him, as the federal head of mankind, and by his transgression, as deteriorating the whole race to spring from him, were all men lost by nature, and further, that “without shedding of blood should be no remission;” {30b} but that by a worthy sacrifice and blood-shedding should the promised seed of the woman in due time effect a reconciliation for them and their descendants, and reverse the evil and the curse of their transgression. Surely, then, from that time forward, a faith in the efficacy of a sacrifice by blood would be required, and would be acceptable to God. Cain, then, would be evidently one who had not this faith, who denied, and disbelieved, and did not look forward to, this sacrifice, or cast himself upon this mercy. By bringing of the fruits of the ground, he may be considered to have made acknowledgment of the power and goodness of God, in causing the seed to grow and the corn to ripen; he may have done as much as we do, when we merely confess that we must look to God for rain, and sunshine, and “fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness;” (therefore, by the way, let us not think too highly of ourselves if we do confess so much; it is right, but it is a very small part of religion:) he may have meant to express thankfulness for blessing, but observe what he did not express. He made no acknowledgment of sin; he exhibited no sense of unworthiness; he confessed no shortcomings; he gave no sign of sorrow or repentance; he asked no mercy; above all, he turned to no one out of himself—no intercessor, no mediator between his God and him. He shewed no sign of looking to a Saviour to make atonement, atonement by blood: he looked to no “Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world” in general, and his own sins in particular. He ignored, then, the whole promise which was the sole hope of man. He may have said, “God, I thank Thee,” but he shewed himself to be wholly without the feeling “God be merciful to me a sinner.”

But, on the other hand, Abel brought of the sheep or goats which were of his flock. He offered up not an unbloody sacrifice. He laid the victim on the altar, and believing God, as well as feeling his need of a Saviour, he looked forward with the eye of faith to an expiation greater than that of kids, or lambs, or bulls, or goats, to take away sin. Nay more, he shewed his sense of the need of an atonement out of and beyond himself; for the blood of the victim offered described at once the sense of his own blood being required as a penalty, if justice only held its course and no expiatory sacrifice were found, and represented also, in true type and figure, that better sacrifice, that more precious blood, which should be shed in the fulness of the time to make such an expiation, even that of “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.”

Now I have gone through this history with what I think is its probable and satisfactory explanation, because not merely does it serve to shew what the Apostle means when he tells us it was by faith that Abel pleased God, and that God testified of his gifts, but also because the very same remarks seem to apply to the whole history and intention of sacrifice, as either commanded or accepted, or both, by Almighty God from the beginning. Take such to be the origin of propitiary sacrifice, and I think nothing can more fully agree with, or illustrate, or be illustrated by, the further progress both of the fact and doctrine as we find them, first in the Holy Scripture, and, secondly, in the world at large, even though by the world’s wickedness so fearfully perverted. In perfect accordance with such beginning of acceptable sacrifice we have the same used and practised, and with the like acceptance, by Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, Isaac, and Jacob, {33a} and, indeed, by all the patriarchs until the institution was embodied in the law of Moses. As we know, also, it was practised by all the heathen nations of antiquity of whom we have any record, though with them its true meaning and intention were fearfully lost and perverted. Nor does the difference in the instance of Abraham on one occasion, as to his being ready to offer a human sacrifice in the person of his son (which was of course a wholly exceptional case as regards the sacrifices of those knowing the true God), make any difference as to the witness of the acceptableness of sacrifice by blood, or the consuming the victim upon the altar. It has, indeed, been disputed whether Abraham were not the more easily reconciled to the idea of sacrificing his son, or even incited to it, by the customary “fierce ritual” of the Syrians around him; but independently of the utter contradiction which this view would give to the account in Holy Scripture, by the attribution of any other motive for Abraham’s conduct than the command of God, received in all faith, and leading to all obedience, it may well be doubted whether a perverse misinterpretation of the sacrifice which Abraham was thus ready to make, and an utter inattention to the real circumstances of that case, may not have been, instead of in any way the _consequence_, rather the _cause_ of the nations around falling into the practice of human sacrifice. But, be this as it may, we have the plain witness to the usage of sacrifice, and its efficacy when performed according to the will of God. Also, that it prefigured the great sacrifice by the blood of a pure victim, as well as in itself taught the lesson that (as afterwards expressed by the Apostle to the Hebrews) “without shedding of blood is no remission.” {34}

And all this we see consolidated and confirmed, as well as more fully expanded and defined, under the Law. And especially there, a certain new element in its administration is introduced, in the appointment of a particular order for the performance of the service. In all the earlier usage, it would seem that the head of the family or tribe acted as the ministering priest. And there is no disproof of this, as far as I see, in the account of even the first sacrifice of all. For there is nothing in the narrative in the Book of Genesis to shew that Cain and Abel were themselves the acting priests (if we may so term it) in the sacrifice. They may each, for aught that appears to the contrary, have brought their offering to Adam, and it may have been by his hand that the different oblations were placed before God, and presented or devoted to Him. Such as the office and privilege of the head or chief, would seem to have been the recognised right and duty of such persons throughout the patriarchal age; but as the rule of patriarchs in secular matters merged in that of kings, as nations grew out of families, so the office of chiefs as priests, however thus exercised by Noah, Abraham, Melchizedek, or Job, seems to have been afterwards restricted to a tribe, or family, or other persons, set apart for the special service, and denominated priests, ἱερεῖς, or _sacerdotes_; names implying their dedication to holy things, and their exclusive rights in many particulars to deal with them. And this theory of worship, if we may so call it, was not merely reduced to a system by God’s law among the Jews, but also prevailed universally among the heathen world from the very earliest times of which any records are preserved. Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus, bear witness to it, and the universal practice of all nations substantiates it, whether in the barbarian forms of the ancient Druidical or other worship in the ruder peoples of the world, or in the more refined practice of Greece and Rome, or in the grotesque or cruel rites of the eastern countries, or absolutely barbarian tribes. They all have their altars, their priests, and their sacrifices, and in most, if not in all, the notion of propitiation by the blood of the victim has prevailed.

It need hardly be added that in the provisions of the Mosaic Law all these principles were embodied, so that, with every safeguard introduced against the perversions, the sensuality, the materialism, and the cruelty, which pervaded all forms and systems of idol worship, yet the true worship of Jehovah, as established by Himself, embraced, and contained, and stereotyped under the mark of His own approval, nay, of His absolute command, the same three points, of an altar, a priesthood, and a sacrifice; yes, a sacrifice in the sense of more than a mere oblation or offering,—a sacrifice by blood of a victim slain, and consumed in the very act of the commanded worship. For it ought never to be forgotten that amid all other offerings that were permitted,—nay, for certain purposes enjoined, as, for instance, for thank-offerings, or for mere legal purification,—yet, under the Jewish Law, the particular sacrifice which was appointed for expiation of any moral offence was the burnt-offering, where the victim, as I have said, was killed, and afterwards consumed by fire upon the altar; {36} and this appears to have no exception, unless it were in the case of the extremely poor, who might offer the tenth part of an ephah of meal; but even then, I believe, it is considered that this was placed upon a victim offered by others, or by the priest, for the sins of the people, and so may be deemed to have made a part of a sacrifice with blood. So that, in truth, as St. Paul says to the Hebrews, “almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission.”

We might say much on this head, and more particularly upon the appointment of the Passover, and the light thrown by this institution upon the typical character of sacrifice generally, and its relation to the great sacrifice of all,—the Lamb slain, once for all upon the cross, for the sins of the world; but the outline already given of the doctrine taught by the sacrifice of Abel will readily suggest a key to the true intention of the ever-recurring sacrifices of the Jews, and to the manner in which they (although “the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sin,” yet) pointed to, and prepared the way for, our understanding the nature of the sacrifice of Christ, and, indeed, were the great means to elicit and foster faith in Him who should come, and to teach all the world daily and continually to look to Him who alone is its salvation, without whom, and whose mercy, no flesh should be saved at all.

We have brought, then, our statement, and I may say our argument, to this point; first, generally that the whole world, with one consent, bears witness to the usage of sacrifice. The whole world from Adam to Christ,—Patriarchal, Jewish, Gentile, Barbarian, Civilized, North, South, East, and West, together (for the new world when discovered was found herein not to be divergent from the old),—testifies, I say, with one mind and one mouth, as to the Being of a God, so likewise to this usage of sacrifice. And again, secondly, and more particularly, the witness agrees, that the sacrifice is made, (to speak generally,) not without blood, and made for the purpose of reconciliation, after sin committed, with the supernatural being or beings invoked, or for propitiation and intercession in cases of favour sought. Even, still further is there accordant and consenting witness; that there will be, as necessary accompaniments to the sacrifice, an altar on which it is to be made, and a specially set apart order of men: priests (ίερεῖς, _sacerdotes_, or however particularly designated), by whom these sacrifices should be offered up, and intercessions made on behalf of the people. So much the whole world testifies generally, in spite of certain differences of usage, and the fearful abominations which prevailed amongst those who did not retain the true God in their knowledge:—the cruelty, licentiousness, and abhorrent vice into which this worship, when it degenerated into idol worship, everywhere sunk; which, however, it is plain, is no more an argument against sacrifice, holily and obediently offered in accordance with God’s appointment, than the superstitions of heathen invocation are an argument against godly prayer and intercession. And thus, too, we see that this very idea of sacrifice, (without the vicious accompaniments,) prevailed among God’s children from the first,—as with Abel, Noah, Melchisedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job; whilst by God’s own sanction and special command, and, with what in human affairs we should call the most laborious care and pains, the whole system was, under Moses, recognised, enlarged, defined, and embodied in a whole code of laws, to be in their very minutest details carried out until the Mediator of a new covenant should come, when that which was old should be ready to vanish away.

But it is well worthy of all our care in examination, to see whether it is the essence of this idea, and even mode, of worship which is done away, or only its ceremonial and local detail, as established in the Jewish Church and polity; whether—as all sacrifices before Christ were intended to look forward to Him, and His precious, inestimable, expiation, to be once made by blood and suffering upon the altar of the cross—whether, I say, so it has not been His will to continue an altar and a priesthood, and therewith and thereby a sacrifice commemorative—but, though commemorative, nevertheless perfectly real and true—by which the Christian Church may both look back to Him, then dying once for all, and ever plead afresh the merits of His death before the throne of God on high. As Abraham looked forward, and “rejoiced to see His day, and saw it, and was glad;” {40a} what if, so likewise, the Christian Church is to look back on Him, and to rejoice; not merely to see Him and be glad, but to be allowed also, according to His own will and ordinance,—(aye, brethren, observe, of and by His own very appointment, whereby His very body and blood are truly offered up to God,)—allowed thus to plead, week by week and day by day, the very all-prevailing merits of that same sacrifice upon the cross; yea, and be the means of Himself graciously pleading it for His people ever afresh before the mercy-seat of His Father. O, my brethren, if this be so, who can undervalue this great thing, or disparage it, or attempt to throw it off, or deny it, or trample it under foot, without a sacrilege fearful to think of? But, again, if this be so, how is the Lamb of God, and His precious blood-shedding, made, more than in any other way which we can conceive, the centre towards which the whole world looks, from its earliest to its latest day; from the moment of the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head, {40b} until that awful hour when that same seed of the woman, the Son of Man, shall come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory? I do not say, it is not conceivable that the whole system and machinery (so to call it), of priest, and altar, and sacrifice, might have fulfilled its purpose at the hour of the crucifixion, and nothing remain of it, or like it, in the Christian Church; nothing in the Christian ministry to answer to the previous priesthood; nothing in it, but a set of teachers or expounders of the Christian faith; a faith, however, be it remarked, in that case, a very different thing from that which the Church has ever supposed it to be, or (as I think) the Holy Scripture sets before us. But even if all this be conceivable, I do say, and I think no unprejudiced person should dispute it, that the whole testimony and usage of all previous time in this matter, the whole of what holy men “did continually” in relation to it, not merely with God’s manifest approval, but even with His especial sanction, and by His positive command, raises a very strong _prima facie_ presumption, that all this was not intended to be, and was not, thus abrogated and done away; and that, at the very least, we ought to have shewn us the most express and distinct proofs of its being thus abrogated, before we can accept its abrogation. We have been accustomed to see, rather, that instead of being abrogated, the usage is changed and glorified; changed from the shadow to the image, from wood and stone to silver and gold, from a comparatively dead state to a glorious living one, from the ministration of death to the ministration of life; but, if this be not so, then, indeed, we may surely ask to see this reversal of all which the economy of God’s dealings would seem to lead us to, expressly promulgated and proved by the word of Christ or His Apostles; so plainly set down as to need no explanation further; or else, so explained by those who immediately followed them, and had the best means of understanding their sense and design, as to leave us no ground for reasonable doubt, or we must be excused if we cannot accept the mere assertion of so improbable a thing as true, or believe the unchangeable God to be so like a Man that He should thus repent.

A fair examination into this question is most important, but we cannot enter upon it at the present moment. We must necessarily defer it to another day. I trust, with God’s help and guidance, to resume our subject on Sunday next, and endeavour further to see how the doctrine really stands, taking, briefly but carefully, into consideration these three points:—

1. What is the testimony of the Holy Scripture as to the doctrine of the Christian priesthood, altar, and sacrifice?

2. How this has been understood by the Church from the beginning? and,

3. How it has been received by our own branch of the Church Catholic, the Church of England?

And I will only add now, whilst I pray that we may all strive simply to know the will of God that we may do it, that there can be no more practical matter than this to engage our thoughts and hearts. For, if it be so, that Christ has left Him no priests now on earth to minister at His altars, and no sacrifice with which His people are concerned, a great part of what so many believe, I might say, of what the Church of God for eighteen hundred years and more has believed, to be of the essence of our faith, is a mere fable and superstition; whilst if, on the other hand, “it be truth, and the thing certain,” {43} that a Christian priesthood, ordained by Christ Himself, and these sacrificial powers, and altar and sacrifice, remain and must remain ever in His Church, what words shall describe the misery and sin of those who are endeavouring to rob a whole nation of their belief in such truth of God, and to pour more than slight and contempt upon the ordinances of Christ; so that, in fact, they would, if they could have their will and way, unchurch the Church of God in this land, deny the virtue of His mysteries, and starve the children of God who seek to receive at His altar the benefits of His sacrifice, humbly waiting on Him there, and partaking of the sacrifice and feast ordained by Him.

Oh! let us pray indeed that we may come to the consideration of so weighty a matter, casting away all passion and prejudice and preconceived opinion, and whatsoever may hinder us from seeing the truth of God, to which may He of His mercy guide us. And may He grant us also that we may not merely know the truth, but when we know it follow it, in our daily life and conversation, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left.

SERMON III. Witness of the New Testament to the Doctrine of Sacrifice.

1 CORINTHIANS x. 18. “Are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”

I RESUME the subject upon which I have spoken on two previous Sundays—the reality of the Christian priesthood, altar, and sacrifice.